The present invention relates to a cross cutting cylinder for shredding paper. In particular, the present invention relates to a novel shaft or cylinder useful for cross-cut type shredders.
In order to destroy documents to preserve their confidentiality, shredders exist which cut or tear the paper into narrow strips or chips. Typically, the cutting is achieved by a pair of rotating cutting cylinders having a series of circular cutters or blades arranged along the axis of a solid shaft.
The cutters on one rotating cylinder are offset to that the cutters pass between the cutters of the other rotating cylinder.
The actual structure of the rotating cylinders having cutters can be a solid bar of steel or similar material in which cutters and spacers are formed by machining so that the cutters and spacers are all integral to one another. Another structure has separate cylindrical members of a large diameter, which are used as the cutters and are spaced apart by separate cylindrical spacers, which are assembled on a shaft in an alternating relationship.
Generally, there are two types of shredder assemblies, a straight or strip cut, and a cross-cut. A straight cut shredder cuts the paper into long, thin strips. This result may be undesirable because it may be possible to reassemble the long thin strips to form the original documents. Another problem with these types of shredders is that after paper has been cut into strips, the strips tend to wind around the cutters and spacers, clogging the cutting area, and if not prevented, eventually causing the mechanism to be jammed.
A cross cut shredder generally comprises a pair of parallel cutting cylinders that contain a series of offset cutting disks arranged along the axis of the cylinders. Cross cut shredders produce small paper chips. Unfortunately, the shredded chips tend to follow the direction of the cutting cylinders and may eventually clog the cutting mechanism.
To solve this problem, it has been suggested to provide strippers to strip away the shredded paper. Typically, strippers consist of a serrated member or a comb type member having teeth that protrude into the spaces between the individual cutting disks. These strippers are generally located on the outward or post-cutting side of the cutting mechanism. Although strippers help to reduce the clogging that may be experienced by cutting cylinders, there is still room for improvement.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a cross cut shredder for a paper shredder that is an improvement over the prior art shredders.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a crosscut shredder where any paper chips falling into the space between the cutting blades are dislodged, thereby preventing clogging of the shredder.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a crosscut shredder that has few parts and is easy to assemble.